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Niagara Falls, N.Y., March 12, 2023 - Stanford University has awarded Stanford credits to 10 Niagara Falls High School (NFHS) students who completed the same introductory computer science course hundreds of the university's undergraduates have taken over the past three decades.
The Niagara Falls City School District (NFCSD) will honor the students' accomplishments at its Board of Education meeting on Thursday, March 14, 2024, at 5:30 p.m. at the Niagara Falls City School District Administration Building, 630 66th Street, Niagara Falls, N.Y. Stanford University Associate Vice Provost Priscilla Fiden will be there to celebrate the students' achievements and present them with completion certificates.
Stanford Digital Education is running the class at Niagara Falls High School with the nonprofit National Education Equity Lab, which brings Stanford and other top-tier university courses into Title I high schools nationwide — at no charge to students. The other higher ed institutions involved are Arizona State University, Cornell, Columbia, Georgetown, Howard, Princeton, and the University of Pennsylvania. The program recognizes that many talented students in low-income communities do not have access to advanced material and seeks to fill that gap.
"We believe that our computer science course can be a life-changing experience for students," Fiden said. "We aim to encourage students from low-income communities to dream bigger and consider applying to selective schools they might not have previously considered. After completing this course, they should be more confident about succeeding wherever they might go to college."
"Talent is sadly wasted when a student with untapped high-level potential goes unnoticed because they are never exposed to elite offerings in higher education," said Niagara Falls City School District Superintendent Mark Laurrie.
"The only difference between Niagara Falls High School's top students and those at more affluent schools is opportunity. Our students are just as talented, intelligent, and dedicated as students from districts where most families do not have to struggle to make ends meet. That is what makes this program so important to the District; it's helping to even the playing field."
The course Computer Science 105: Introduction to Computers has a heavy workload. Students learn CSS and HTML coding, study the programming language Python, are taught the fundamentals of computer security and privacy, and build their own websites as the final project. While a typical undergraduate course at Stanford is three or four credits, this one is worth five. In addition to earning Stanford credits, the Niagara Falls High School students have also been awarded credits from Niagara Falls High School toward their high school degrees.
The free course spanned six months at NFHS. Students met in a classroom after school under the direction of teacher Danielle DePalma. While there, they logged onto laptops to get personalized lessons via Zoom from Stanford teaching fellows. At home and in class, they would watch lecture videos by the course creator, Patrick Young, a lecturer in the computer science department at Stanford. Students had weekly assignments to complete, and if they needed help, they could ask the Stanford teaching fellows questions during online office hours.
This is the first year that CS 105 was offered at NFHS. Associate Vice Provost Fiden said Stanford Digital Education looks forward to offering it again next year.
The idea for bringing the course to the school came from the PipeDreamers Foundation, a Stanford-founded nonprofit education and workforce development organization with a mission "to educate, train and mentor at-promise and underserved American teenagers and young adults preparing them for the future of work starting with design and coding skills."
"Niagara Falls High School and PipeDreamers were fantastic partners," said Fiden. "They went the extra mile to ensure the students had the support they needed to succeed."
“We were both impressed and appreciative of the level of commitment Stanford had to ensure our students’ success,” said NHFS Administrator Bryan Rotella. “More so, the experience highlights the incredible and unique opportunities our students have at NFHS that prepare them for post-secondary success. We look forward in expanding our relationship with Stanford and continue to celebrate our amazing students.”
Stanford Digital Education's dual enrollment program began offering Stanford courses in Title I high school classrooms nationwide in the fall of 2021. There is a total of five courses, including CS 105. The high school students are registered as non-matriculated Stanford students. All of the courses are a mix of synchronous and asynchronous learning, with a local high school teacher running the classes (in-person), along with a Stanford teaching fellow giving instruction (via Zoom).
